The Arkansas Consortium on School Research (ACSR) is an action-oriented consortium of state education leaders, practitioners, and education researchers who have united to collaborate on strategies to build their local research capacity and to facilitate the use of date in real world scenarios. Representing rural and high poverty school districts in Arkansas, the Consortium focuses on college and career readiness, a topic of state and national interest.

 

Districts have the opportunity to improve outcomes by using their own student data to assess, intervene, and monitor progress in a timely manner. The consortium fosters relationships by building a community of practice which allows districts to communicate and share challenges and successes. Members will be able to participate in future meetings online and communicate in a dynamic environment with each other as a way to encourage a continuous dialogue.

 

The research consortium was initiated by the REL Southwest at Edvance Research Governing Board with support from the Arkansas Commissioner of Education, Tom W. Kimbrell; the Arkansas Department of Education Research and Technology department; as well as the Southeast Arkansas, Great Rivers, and Arkansas Rivers Education Service Cooperatives.

 

 

 

Texas Consortium on School Research (TCSR) is an action-oriented consortium of Texas school districts that convene to collaborate on building their local research capacity to address critical school improvement issues. With the recent national focus on education reform, education leaders and researchers are anxious to understand data and find the most effective methods to utilize this knowledge in their daily work.

More than thirty districts participate in TCSR, serving more than 1.7 million students or just over 37% of all students in Texas. TCSR member districts are heavily involved with:

 

• Building capacity for leadership around research,
• Identifying and sharing best practices,
• Conducting research to know what works and what doesn’t work in their districts, and
• Analyzing data to find new ways to address issues.

 

TCSR provides a safe venue for its members to interact and share data, ideas, successes and challenges that lead to collective and ongoing improvements in the interpretation and application of data.  The members of TCSR are building a dynamic Community of Practice  around school research.  

 

Sara Arispe, Executive Director of Accountability and Data Quality at Fort Worth ISD, shared her experience as a TCSR member, “Fort Worth ISD is thrilled to participate in the Texas Consortium on School Research.  This is an exciting opportunity to increase collaboration between practitioners in districts and researchers to leverage and share education research efforts, analyses, findings, and best practices relevant to Texas as we all move more strategically toward common goals like increasing career and college readiness”.